ThinkCentre S50

The IBM ThinkCentre S50 is a desktop PC designed to pack a lot of power into a tiny, easily manageable platform.

The chassis measures 12 by 14.1 by 3.3 inches, which makes it less than half the size of a standard desktop PC, and not much bigger than a notebook. If you combine it with an LCD monitor, you have a very small footprint. Two things really stand out about the S50. First, there are a lot of upgrade options, which are mostly unheard among smaller form factors. The S50 has an internal power supply, two full-size PCI slots, three drive bays and an optical drive.

The other impressive thing is that the S50 chassis is completely toolless for upgrading or troubleshooting the interior. Few full-size desktops allow toolless access, and it is surprising that here even the internal cables are properly bundled and tucked out of the way. They also are color-coded.

The unit can be configured in various ways, but the unit we tested had a Pentium 4 chip with hyperthreading enabled, which lets the system multitask without slowing down. The S50's reasonable price makes it a good buy for environments such as a data-processing office where the cubicles are small but numerous.